


stepped out into the cold

by kali



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Depersonalization, Gen, Headcanon, M/M, Not A Fix-It, POV Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter (mentioned) - Freeform, Steve is not a happy camper, Things Will Be Okay, but eventually - Freeform, not in the fic, standard Winter Soldier trauma umbrella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali/pseuds/kali
Summary: Bucky always knew that if Steve ever found him, he would be angry. He hadn't thought Steve would find him, obviously, but he knew what would happen if he did.





	

I opened the fire door to four lips  
none of which were mine, kissing  
tightened my belt around my hips  
where your hands were missing  
stepped out into the cold, collar high  
under the slate gray sky  
the air was smoking and the streets were dry  
and I wasn't joking when I said good bye

-ani difranco, “firedoor”

Bucky always knew that if Steve ever found him, he would be angry. He hadn't thought Steve _would_ find him, obviously, but he knew what would happen if he did.

Right now, Steve is trying to be gentle with him because he thinks Bucky might be like some kind of wild animal, he thinks that he could spook Bucky at any moment and then he would viciously attack Steve like anything cornered and mindless would. This is smart. Unexpected, unnecessary, but smart.

As soon as things settle down, though, Bucky knows he's going to be in trouble. In fact, he already is.

***

They don't really talk about anything while they drive. Or while they suit up.

In the jet, he tries to talk a little. He knows Steve would like it if Bucky talked to him. Like they used to. Before. He's rusty, but he could try.

He does try. Reminiscing. Girls. Safe subject. But Steve was even angry when he was kissing that beautiful blonde—almost _at_ him, like he thinks Bucky might be jealous, like he thinks Bucky would ever begrudge Steve a minute of happiness, like he doesn't know Bucky would get down on the ground and kiss the Carter girl’s feet if that’s what it took—and Bucky doesn't know how to answer Steve's hurt, wordless accusation: _You didn't come back. I followed you. And you didn't come back to me._

He could explain.

He could try: I didn't come back because I was afraid at some point you might ask me: "What do you want to do now that you're free?" and I had no idea what to say.

The problem is he still doesn't.

And it’s clearly going to come up.

Maybe he should think up some things in advance. No matter how much he might like to, he definitely can't say: “I am literally too fucked up sometimes to remember that ‘free’ and ‘want’ are words that can even apply to me, ever, under any circumstance. The fact that I can use word ‘I’ in reference to myself at all feels like a fucking miracle. How about you just tell me what I _should_ want? It might be easier on you and it would definitely be easier on me.”

No, somehow he doesn't feel like he can say that.

But he's going to need an answer eventually.

He knows he was free once, obviously. In that time he silently categorizes as 'Before.' So he can define the word. It is information he can access. He can remember. Freedom.

The problem is: if he’s free, what ‘s left to dream of? He can choose now whether or not to indulge his most secret, wordless desires, the ones he would never say out loud, the impulses he would never let himself fulfill if he had the choice, that he would never even want to admit to himself he actually has, but that do still flash through his mind sometimes as disconnected images, involuntary.

There’s no one forcing him to make them real anymore, though; no one unearthing them and making him carry them out, leaving him the horrors he’ll keep on seeing forever with his mind’s eye in vivid, glorious technicolor, knowing that not only did he make them happen, but somewhere deep down he must have wanted to do them, or he never would have been able to think them up.

They told him precisely what result they wanted, it’s true: who to hit, how much collateral damage, how many civilian casualties, whether to overwhelm with brute force or to use a surgical strike. They told him what to do, but he’s the one who thought of how to get it done: to shoot or to stab; to slice or to crush; to cut or to break; to strangle or to burn.

Sometimes all of the above.

Nobody watches him now. Sometimes, he's almost positive he's alone, unseen, undissected. He can do things that only he knows about. On occasion he can fuck up, and no one else will find out. Nobody's made a record of his every bodily function for more than two years.

What more is there?

Steve won't understand. And Bucky doesn't even really want him to, to comprehend what it feels like to have done these things and how incredible it is not to have to do them anymore. Luckily, Bucky doesn't even think he _could_ understand, not completely, even if somehow he'd been captured instead. Would the things he's done even occur to Steve as possibilities? Bucky doesn't think so.

***

After Siberia—after the tape, after the fight, after the limping, halting journey to safety or something like it, there comes a point when he has to say something. He can't avoid this conversation anymore, not without just silently disappearing, and he doesn't think he can do that to Steve. Not again.

What should he do? What should he say?

He could try to think what Steve might want from him, but he's not sure he can determine what that is. He could try to extrapolate—he would have known once. Before. But anyway that would still just be a story, a cover. A lie. He doesn't have to lie to Steve. Probably. He doesn't _want_ to lie to Steve.

He wants. What does he want.

He wants to be free. That’s it. That’s all.

If he’s free, he won’t have to hurt anyone, even if he wants to, even by accident. If he’s free, everyone will be safe from him. He won’t cause more damage, more scenes of awe-inspiring violence that come out of the depths of his own head whether he wants them to or not.

The tank seems like the freest place on earth.

He can’t explain it to Steve, but it’s best. It’s best for everyone. 

 

 

killed a cockroach so big it left a puddle of pus on the wall  
when you and i are lying in bed you don't seem so tall  
i'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired  
and my mind is disconnected but my heart is wired  
i make such a good statistic  
someone should study me now  
somebody's got to be interested in how i feel  
just 'cause i'm here and i'm real

and oh, how i miss  
substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss  
and oh, how i miss walking up to the edge and jumping in  
like i could feel the future on your skin

ani, "fire door"

**Author's Note:**

> i apparently always want to flail about all things Captain America & MCU & Marvel-on-Netflix, so if that sounds good to you, hit me up on tumblr @[superkalifragilistic](http://superkalifragilistic.tumblr.com) or say hi in the comments! thanks for reading <3


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